


Punches Thrown

by dilangley



Series: get a life (you first) [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, Slow Burn, This apartment has only one bed, self-defense class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18751216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: “In self-defense, you only need to know a few things. It's nothing like going on the attack,” Natasha began. She forced herself to keep her tone steady, light. “Do you know how to throw a punch?”Molly shook her head. “I’ve only ever seen a punch in the movies.”Or how Natasha Romanoff ended up teaching self-defense classes in the apartment she shares with Steve Rogers.[a stand-alone oneshot]





	Punches Thrown

**Author's Note:**

> No beta. We die like men.

This shade of bright blue sky was the inspiration of all those cheesy songs. Natasha glanced up at the fluffy, bouncing clouds overhead and wondered how the hell she could hear birds singing in the middle of Brooklyn.

Her first day of training at the VA hospital had been abysmal; the administration had not veiled their hopes that female employees would be a pretty distraction for former soldiers. They had reiterated their stance that most of these men who came in complaining of night sweats, headaches, and trouble acclimating just needed a can-do attitude and a dose of electrotherapy for the shellshock. The pittance of a paycheck was not going to be enough to keep her from making waves there.

A wolf whistle howled through the air, ruining the beautiful day’s peace in one obtrusive, obnoxious noise. She turned. A man leaned against the doorframe of the neighboring building, a proud grin on his face.

“Now there’s a doll. What’s an Upper East girl like you doing in this part of town?”

Natasha counted to three in her head to keep from killing him. She counted again to keep from unleashing the hot retort on her lips.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. What, you think you’re too good to talk to me?”

With senses better than mere vision, she felt him step toward her, and no amount of counting would be enough to allow that. She spun on her heel, caught his hand before it got to her shoulder. Skipping the witty replies, she used her left palm for a quick, hard strike. He hit the ground with a howl of pain.

“Jesus, lady,” he wheezed into the concrete. She did not dignify that with a response either.

On the walk into the apartment building and up an annoying number of stairs, Natasha admired the click of her two-toned pumps, her only indulgent fashion choice in a stark, serviceable closet. The second set of clicks, however, caught her attention. She glanced up to see a breathless woman jogging down the stairs, eyes directly on her.

“Hello.” The woman waved, eyes bright. “You must live in this building too! I can’t believe I’ve never introduced myself. I’m Molly.”

“Hi Molly,” Natasha said, glancing around the dingy stairwell as if it would offer a clue as to why the sudden neighborliness. “Natalie, but everyone calls me Nat.”

“Nat.” Molly giggled. “That’s cute! My name’s Mary like my mother, so Molly it was.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Molly.” Natasha took a tentative step forward.

“Right! So… I happened to have my windows open to air out my place a little, and I heard that crumb out there again, hassling you. And then I saw you flatten him.” Molly’s eyes widened as if reliving her own surprised delight at that moment. “I was just impressed that was all.”

Natasha picked out the key piece of information. “He’s out there often?”

“Him or some other guys. The ones left behind by the war ain’t always the good ones.”

“Yeah, well, talking tough and backing it up are two different things. He isn’t much,” Natasha offered hollow comfort.

“Maybe not. Not if you have moves like that. I’d’ve never.”

“You could.” Natasha said it quietly, almost to herself, and then brightened, carefully selecting a wide, open smile. “How about coming over for a cup of coffee? This is my floor.”

“That’d be swell.”

They made their way into the apartment. If Molly judged the haphazard arrangement of pillows and blankets on the couch, she said nothing. Natasha and Steve had been trading off, bed to couch, every couple nights. The communal laundry pile existed equidistant between the two spaces -- right in the middle of the floor.

Natasha clumsily started the vacuum coffee pot, an invention she had been cursing since arrival, while Molly took the offered seat in a creaky wooden chair with no table.

“Did your husband just get back?” Molly tilted her head toward the toolkit beside the icebox.

“Yes. He’s taken a job down at the docks, but we’re just getting started back again.”

“My husband never made it back. You’re lucky.”

Natasha smiled despite herself, remembering the cold world she and Steve had endured post-snap and the promise on his lips now that the world had been saved. Perhaps they were lucky. Or at the very least, they had manufactured luck out of some skill, tenacity, and sacrifice.

“One of my friend’s, her husband still sleeps on the couch too,” Molly said. “And he can’t relax. He’s always trying to fix something, hammering in the middle of the night. I think they’re having a real tough time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Steve is doing okay.” She decided it was best not to mention just how many years of processing that had taken for him. Natasha poured two cups of coffee in mismatched mugs. Molly accepted hers gratefully, breathed in deep.

“We missed this.” Molly’s tone was warm. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Natasha blew the wisping steam away and risked a sip. It was bitter and too weak. Damn. “So, Molly, you didn’t come running down the stairs to meet a new neighbor just because you hadn’t yet. No one smart is that friendly.”

Molly fiddled with the handle of the mug, her face dropping. “You’re pretty perceptive.”

“Sometimes.”

“I never thought I’d be living on my own here. I’m from Aurora. We barely even have a main street there, and now I’m in Brooklyn, y’know? That guy’s not the only jerk out there.”

Natasha seized the opening. “I could show you some moves. You wouldn’t have to know much to know how to protect yourself.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but you won’t want to learn in that.” She pointed to the simple checked dress. “Do you have something better?”

“Coveralls?” Molly turned the word into a question. Natasha nodded.

“Sure.”

They finished their cups of coffee, passing casual conversation between them easily, and parted to change. Natasha slipped into the tennis slacks she had reluctantly purchased, one of the only options in activewear she could find, and one of the undershirts that functioned like tee shirts. She debated putting on shoes again, but the impracticality of the options made her decision for her.

Stretching herself out on the bare living room floor, she reminded herself to go easy on this civilian.

Molly showed back up with her game face on, hair pinned up tightly and feet in serviceable shoes. Her coveralls had splatters of grease on them from wartime work. Suddenly the dainty young woman in the pleated dress and curls looked like the Rosie the Riveter posters Natasha had always secretly found inspiring.

“In self-defense, you only need to know a few things. It's not like going on the attack,” Natasha began. She forced herself to keep her tone steady, light. “Do you know how to throw a punch?"

Molly shook her head. “I’ve only ever seen a punch in the movies.”

“Wow.” Natasha tried to imagine that level of blissful innocence. During wartime, no less. Inevitable, she supposed, that the very thought of such naivete flooded her with memories. In the cold of a Red Room training facility, she had shed childhood as cleanly as a snake shedding into its new, bigger, badder self. She wondered if the snakes, too, had cried for their loss. “Then let’s get started.”

  


\-----------------

  


Molly’s face dripped sweat, pinning tendrils of hair to her forehead and cheeks. She squared up, weight forward on her toes, and punched. Natasha checked off the wishlist as she dodged: tight fist, straight wrist, distribution of mass.

“Good. Again.”

She deflected another punch. This time, weariness tweaked Molly out of form.

“You over-rotated your shoulder. Again.”

As she absorbed this punch with a quick side strike, the front door opened. Molly froze when she saw Steve and his sudden amusement. Natasha appraised him through a stranger’s eyes, clean-shaven and bright-eyed and broad, oh so broad. If they had been strangers, stepping into each other’s lives without baggage, the sight of those blue eyes in that strong face might have made her heart call dibs.

“Hi, honey. How’re things?” Natasha purred, grinning.

“Oh, you know, the usual, can’t complain,” he said. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“This is my friend, Molly. We’re practicing some self-defense. Molly, this is Steve.”

“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.” Steve nodded politely.

“We didn’t mean to…. I mean, we didn’t….” Molly fumbled over her words, flushed red as her cherry lipstick. “Nat was showing me how to take care of myself. She’s a great teacher.”

“I’ll bet she is.”

“When I saw her take out a man who was harassing her earlier, I was so impressed.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. Natasha shook her head, giving him the universal head cock of “I’ll tell you later.” In fact, right now, she had an entirely different plan for him.

“It’s perfect that you’re home. I wanted to show her a few more things, but I didn’t have a way to do it.”

Steve wore his concerned face like a badge. She could practically hear the vibrating disapproval of his thoughts. Surely he was chastising her for drawing attention to him, for behaving so out of character for the era, for making him wait to know what had happened today, but aloud, he only said,

“How can I help?”

“C’mhere.”

They stood opposite one another, and she still imagined what Molly must be thinking of him right now. Even as a woman with a lifetime of experience dangling men from her fingertips and dashing them on the rocks, Natasha had found herself a little cowed by Cap’s radiant goodness. Ordinary men could be bent and twisted to any purpose with the right leverage, but Steve had always possessed his own unbendable steel. How one glance at him could sell that whole part of the story, she didn’t know, but she did know that was just what happened.

“Earlier, we talked about the strike to the solar plexus, but I didn’t demonstrate -- a second time -- because I didn’t want us to hurt each other,” Natasha told Molly humbly, “but now I can show you.”

“Yes, I would be thrilled to be the test dummy for this,” Steve muttered to no one in particular.

Natasha went on. “You want to hold your hand like this, thumb pulled back out of the way. You don’t want to strike with only the heel. The best distribution comes from using the whole palm.”

She should have held back more, but something about that beautiful steel in Steve’s eyes and the knowledge that he could take whatever she threw at him shook loose her restraint. He grunted at the strike but hardly bobbled.

“Did you miss?” Molly asked, all sincerity. Natasha chuckled.

“Not quite,” she said, low enough that only the super soldier in front of her could hear. Steve grinned. Louder, she said, “Not everyone is going to be a pushover like that soft loser downstairs. Some people fight back.”

“And if they do,” Steve added, “that doesn’t mean you can’t win.”

Natasha kicked at his leg, half-speed, and he caught her by the ankle. Their eyes locked. Heat flared across her skin, roaring adrenaline coming to life. They had sparred before on occasion, a half-hearted, technical feat where neither of them laid their full arsenal on the line. She supposed the heart of it was simple: both of them had to believe that if it came down to it, they could win a fight. She knew she did; she sincerely believed if the moment ever came where she had to put down Captain America, Black Widow could do it. No one should ever step on the battlefield without such confidence.

But this was somehow so different. Like a switch, the training mode between them flicked to something else. She countered, he countered, and they spun into a dizzy blur of jabs and grapples, each one just a bit too fast and too skilled to be bested. Finally, he caught both of her hands in his, thought himself victorious, and reacted just a bit too slow. She flipped her thighs around his neck and wrested him to the ground.

They lay still a moment, trapped in a stalemate unless someone wished to draw actual blood. Natasha breathed heavily in his grasps, their chests rising and falling in unison, his heartbeat thrumming with hers in her bloodstream.

She nearly blushed.

“Gee whiz,” Molly said, her mouth forming a soft, surprised O.

Natasha plastered on a falsely bright smile. “Obviously it doesn’t have to go like that.”

“I sure hope not.”

Steve let go of her and sheepishly wiped his sweaty palms on his pants legs. “Well, that was enough excitement for me. You ladies get back to it, I guess. I’m going to go clean up.”

“Nice meeting you,” Molly murmured. Steve waved and disappeared into the bedroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

“I think I still have a lot to learn,” she said when it was just her and Natasha again. “I might have to come back tomorrow.”

  


\-------------------

  


Natasha scrubbed her hair, mumbling out a Russian prayer meant to center her. She scratched at her scalp, soaped along her skin. But no amount of squeaky clean distracted from the delicious, familiar buzz along her skin.

Wanting Steve Rogers had its place in her life; it had for years now.

Once she had made him an offer, she supposed, or something close to one. She had told him she would be whatever version of herself other people wanted.  He had asked her to be his friend; the decision had paid off. They had become two of the best friends she had ever known, each keeping moments of one another no one else would ever know.

Despite protests to the contrary, she knew she had been his first kiss in the modern world, had tasted the surprise and sweet pleasure in his mouth on an escalator in a dingy mall.

They had been on the run together not once, not twice, but if you counted this dizzying, ridiculous escape from death itself, three times.

Once on the long flight home from Wakanda after everything had been lost, they held one another close. Neither of them had ever mentioned the tears shed against one another’s skin that day.

When she sacrificed herself to save Clint and perhaps more, Steve had clawed out the other side of a war to bring her home -- or at least, to the closest thing he could manage.

This well ran too deep and nourished things too important for her to dip into it over mere lust.

She finished her shower, toweled off, and slipped into her pajamas. Her muscles twinged, pleased with themselves for being back to use, however briefly, today.

Tonight was her night on the couch, but when she stepped out of the bathroom, Steve had not settled in.

“You take the bed again,” he said from the doorway.

“Didn’t you pay attention to turn taking when you were in grade school?”

“I was never a very good student.” When she didn’t react to his joke, he tried a different approach. “I don’t like it. I know you’re a badass, sleep-on-a-rock type, but I’m a--”

She realized where he was going with this. It was charmingly 1940s of him.

“--gentleman,” he finished with a shrug. “Just take the bed.”

Natasha looked at the full-size bed, sheets neatly tucked in and three pillows arranged just so. It was perfectly comfortable, unlike the couch with its hard wooden slats barely covered by cardboard-stiff cushions.

“Maybe the answer isn’t just me taking the bed another night.”

“Hmmm?”

“How long are we going to be living together, Steve?”

He startled, just as he had done whenever confronted by the stickier realities of their situation. He opened his mouth, and she cut him off.

“Just a quick answer.”

“Probably a long time,” he admitted.

“I don’t see any reason you have to sleep on the world’s lousiest couch indefinitely. We’re adults. Come share the bed.”

It was such a simple idea.

But when he breathed in, his eyes a little wide, his face carefully arranged, she realized she was not the only one ignoring an electric current in the air. She could have offered him an out, a redirect, made a flip comment about how she was just kidding, but that would have validated the buzz between them.

Instead, she said, “I promise not to jump you. I know you’re an old-fashioned guy.”

He exhaled a short laugh. “You’re a spy. Lying’s your job description.”

“The sky’s blue. Tell me something else I don’t know.”

“That’s my side.”

“Cap always tries to be on the right side,” she teased, and he rewarded her cheek with a wrinkle of his nose and a shake of his head.

They both crawled into bed with smiles. Yet no amount of joking made it easier for her to fall asleep with her back almost touching his in the quiet dark of the bedroom. It was an intimacy beyond sex, a kind of choice and trust she had watched in other people but forgotten for herself.

It took hours for his breathing to become her lullaby.

 

\------------------

  


The next day when Natasha had been home from the VA for an hour, she heard a knock at the door. She opened it to find Molly standing there in her coveralls and braided pigtails, two others behind her, an older woman with grey curls up in a kerchief and a girl in borrowed pants who could not have been a day over eighteen.

“Hi Nat,” Molly was sheepish. “Do you mind if I introduce you to some friends?”

“Come on in.” Natasha opened the door wider.

For the next week, she taught the women of the apartment complex to punch, kick, and grapple like Valkyries and went to bed each night taking care not to brush against Steve, afraid of the fire that might rage if any spark caught.

 


End file.
